The long-term goals of the Nano-Omic-Bio-Engineering-Lab (NOBEL) are to understand and engineer muscle function. Muscle is the primary organ system that defines our complex movements and to a degree our life and joy (“joy’s soul lies in the doing” – W. Shakespeare). We focus on generating fundamental insights into the basic processes of muscle (development, proliferation and differentiation, migration and fusion, responses to stimuli) and translate our findings in relevant models (muscular dystrophy, aging, and disabilities resulting from severe trauma). The main research thrusts of the laboratory are in 1) muscle stem cell biology and muscle regeneration (myogenic lineage progression, cellular communication networks, cell-based therapies, factors in the stem cell niche), 2) cellular reprogramming and cell-fate plasticity (transcriptional and epigenetic factors, microenvironment interactions, chromatin memory), and 3) micro/nanodevices for interacting with and manipulating single cells and molecules.
Research Areas: Bio-MEMS and Microfluidics, Bio-Micro Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering, Bio-Nanotechnology, Biomechanics, Biomedical Computation and Modeling, Drug Delivery and Therapeutics, Ergonomics and Rehabilitation, Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics, Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine